Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Holliday and Wall.

There were no declarations of interest.

Minutes of the meeting held on 13 February 2015

The minutes of the meeting held on 13 February were approved and signed as a correct record.

The Mayor informed Members that he would be sleeping rough the following week and would be grateful for any sponsorship.

There were no communications from the Leader.

These must be received no later than 12 noon on Friday 20 February 2015.

There were no public questions.

These must be received no later than 12 noon on Friday 20 February 2015.

Report of the Cabinet Member Finance

The Cabinet Member Finance introduced the report, the purpose of which was to enable the Council to set the Council Tax for 2015/16. The Council was required to formally approve the total Council Tax for residents of Cheltenham, including the Council Tax requirements of the precepting organisations Gloucestershire County Council, Gloucestershire Police and Parish Councils.

A recorded vote was required upon the recommendation in the report and this was unanimously CARRIED.

Voting for 36: Cllrs Babbage, Barnes, Baker, Britter, Chard, Clucas, Coleman, Fisher, Fletcher, Flynn, Harman, C Hay, R Hay, Jeffries, Jordan, Lansley, Lillywhite, Mason, McCloskey, McKinlay, Murch, Nelson, Payne, Rawson, Regan, Reid, Ryder, Seacome, Stennett, Sudbury, Thornton, Walklett, Wheeler, Whyborn, Wilkinson, Williams.

RESOLVED THAT

The formal Council Tax resolution at Appendix 2 be approved and that the commentary in respect of an increase in Council Tax at Paragraph 6 of Appendix 2 be noted.

Report of the Leader

The Leader introduced the report and explained that the Local Development Scheme (LDS) collects together the separate timetables for the preparation of statutory development plan documents and presents them in one document. He informed that it represented Cheltenham Borough Council’s commitment to the production of various planning documents that would make up the areas “local plan”. The Development Plan Documents it identifies as under preparation are the Gloucester Cheltenham and Tewkesbury Joint Core Strategy and the emerging Cheltenham Plan.

The Leader explained that an up to date LDS would assist with the Examination in Public of the JCS later in the year which would be followed by Phase 1 of the Cheltenham Plan. He highlighted that depending on the outcome of the JCS the timetable outlined in the LDS may change. He reported that it had been suggested that the constitution working group review the process given that such a change could happen given the inspection process.

RESOLVED THAT

The 2015 Local Development Scheme attached at Appendix 2 be approved.

Motion proposed by Councillor Whyborn, seconded by Councillor Britter :

“Council notes with concern that new housing developments are being put forward without adequate high-speed/super-fast broadband facilities, and that in many cases no suitable public funding streams exist for new estates in suburban areas.

Council therefore resolves to initiate a policy such that future planning applications for new developments will have a requirement to enable access to appropriate quality of broadband facilities at minimal set-up cost to the householder. Council therefore instructs officers to develop further detail to support the policy of this resolution at the earliest practical opportunity, and to incorporate this into the local plan.”

The following motion was proposed by Councillor Whyborn and seconded by Councillor Britter:

“Council notes with concern that new housing developments are being put forward without adequate high-speed/super-fast broadband facilities, and that in many cases no suitable public funding streams exist for new estates in suburban areas.

Council therefore resolves to initiate a policy such that future planning applications for new developments will have a requirement to enable access to appropriate quality of broadband facilities at minimal set-up cost to the householder. Council therefore instructs officers to develop further detail to support the policy of this resolution at the earliest practical opportunity, and to incorporate this into the local plan.”

Councillor Whyborn referred to the following amendment proposed by Councillor Tim Harman which had been circulated to all members before the meeting. It was formerly seconded by Councillor Andrew Chard.

Add the following to the motion proposed by Councillor Whyborn as set out in the Council agenda:

1. The work by officers should include consideration of the provisions of the EU broadband directive (2014/61/EU) which requires new developments from 2017 to be equipped with "high speed ready in building physical infrastructure" (with "high speed " meaning a "network which is capable of delivering broadband access services at speeds of at least 30 Mbps).

2. For those in existing homes which are suffering from poor broadband speeds, Council resolves to work closely with the County Council ( along with their Fastershire project) and commercial providers to ensure that all broadband cabinets in Cheltenham are upgraded to fibre capability as soon as possible, to ensure both new and existing developments benefit from faster broadband.

Councillor Whyborn indicated that he was very happy to accept the amendment provided that the speed of 30 Mbps referred to was in the EU directive. Councillor Harman confirmed that this was the case and therefore the original motion with this amendment became the substantive motion.

In proposing the amendment, Councillor Whyborn indicated that the motion related to a problem which was gathering pace.  BT was currently running out high-speed broadband to their cabinets all over town and similarly Virgin were upgrading all their systems. Hence residents in these favoured areas could update their broadband speeds easily. However there were areas in his ward and other parts of the town where this was not the case. He gave residents in Manor Farm as an example with broadband speeds of less than 1 Mbps and this could only be increased by paying a considerable sum to the telecom providers, currently £9,300 for BT.

As these areas were classified as urban areas they did not qualify for grants under the Fastershire scheme. Mostly they were newbuild areas where planning permission had been granted up to four years ago. Moving forward, broadband capability should be a standard for all new developments in the same way as any other utility. The intention of this motion was to strengthen the hand of Planning Committee and planning policy by incorporating this requirement into the local  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

None received.